


Constellations [Erwin Smith x Reader]

by alispropriisvolat



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Commander Erwin Smith, Erwin Smith - Freeform, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan References, a lot of stars in this story as well, and classical antiquity, and i dont think thats what theyre supposed to be, because i really do not know what im supposed to do with these, erwin smith x reader - Freeform, idk a lot of paint in this story, oh and stars, okay someone teach me how to write tags, or type them out, tbh im too tired to get creative with these tags, theyve just become little side comments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alispropriisvolat/pseuds/alispropriisvolat
Summary: I have been broken by these words and I have been rebuilt.And I hope that I have made them right.
Relationships: Erwin Smith & Original Female Character(s), Erwin Smith & Reader
Comments: 16
Kudos: 59





	Constellations [Erwin Smith x Reader]

I knew a boy once, who had an artist's soul. 

He painted a sky full of stars in the middle of the day. 

He knew the colours that the old gods and goddesses painted the secrets of the cosmos with. He knew the colours of the constellations — fading stars of dead legends, of fallen worlds in collapsing galaxies.

He told me, "I read it in a book once. I stole it from my father. That's how the past speaks to you, all the dead — it's in books." 

I watched him paint the forgotten secrets of perished people. Stories of how they lived and how they died, how they loved, how they lost; of how they created, and destroyed and rebuilt. 

Despite it all. 

That was the devastating beauty of humanity. 

His paintbrush painted the shades of creation, of ruin, across the emptiness of his canvas. Colours of lost worlds, forgotten histories of fallen angels and births of Venuses. 

I asked him how he knew it all. 

He told me to look up at the sky. 

"Because when they die, the gods and goddesses scatter them across the stars so that at night, when the world looks up, they see them and remember their stories. Forever." 

And I fell in love with every colour of the night — the stories they died in, the stories that immortalized them. 

I fell in love with the boy who painted their skies. 

The boy who wanted to be an artist. 

Before he grew up, before the war broke him. 

He stood in a Survey Corps uniform. I watched a man give his heart. 

I watched him lose the colourful boyhood of his soul. 

The war broke everything. 

The constellations were in fragments.

The war broke everyone. 

Venus was dead. 

He said that he had to go, he said that he had to fight. He took up arms. 

His paints dried, his paintbrushes decayed. 

And quietly, the gods and goddesses fell again, into another death, to be forgotten once again by the long, dark nights. 

Erwin came back. After days, weeks, months. I watched less and less of him come back to me — bruised, beaten, broken. 

I'd kiss him, I'd hold him; softly, tenderly. Try to put him back together. 

"You'll get though this," I told him. "We'll get through this." 

Because that's what humanity does — devastatingly, beautifully. We're created, we're destroyed, we're rebuilt. 

Despite it all. 

And slowly, he started to smile. 

For the first time in a long time. 

The gentle beginnings of laughter touched his voice. 

His touches were warm — against my lips, along my neck; confessing how sorry he was, that he still loved me, that he always would. 

He painted the fragments of a night sky on a canvas later that afternoon. 

He was that boy I knew once, who had an artist's soul. And he was the man who gave his soldier heart. 

It was like that for a little while, for a beautiful little while. 

Days, weeks, months, he kept coming back and we put each other back together; softly, tenderly. 

Then he'd paint. 

The gods and goddesses came back to life and filled the sky with stars. 

"Let me paint you," he said one night. "Because Venus was never in the sky. She's you. She was always you." 

His eyes, his fingertips, his lips were on my lips, down my neck then down my body; painting. Kisses on my skin and colours on the canvas. 

He never finished. 

The war took his arm first. Then it killed him before we were given the chance to recover. 

The gods and goddesses fell with him on that day. And at night, they make space in their sky for the colours of his constellation. 

I look up from time to time, searching. 

"Because when they die, the gods and goddesses scatter them across the stars so that at night, when the world looks up, they see them and remember their stories. Forever." 

He's there too; next to the kings and queens and gods and goddesses. The artist who remembered to paint them again, the soldier who gave his heart to humanity. 

I fall in love all over again, with every sunset, with every colour of the night, with the stars of his soul, the constellations of his heart. 

Remembering. Forever. 

I don't paint. Erwin's canvases are still empty, unfinished. They'll remain that way — untouched on the walls of our home, the walls of my memories. 

I don't know how to paint. But I want to do my best to tell this story; to tell it as honestly, as devastatingly and beautifully as I can. 

So that you know what you're looking at, what I'm looking at, what we're remembering when we look up at the stars. 

Kings and queens, and gods and goddesses. 

The soul of an artist and his soldier heart; the heart of a soldier and his artist soul. And the writer, who loved him. 

The story of how we lived and how we died, how we loved, how we lost; of how we created, and destroyed and rebuilt. 

Despite it all. 

This is the story that Erwin Smith died in; this is the story that will immortalize him. 

I have been broken by these words and I have been rebuilt. 

And I hope that I have made them right.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy this piece! As always, can be found on my Deviant Art acc: viresacquiriteundo. 
> 
> Feel free to leave some feedback - questions, comments, concerns, always happy to hear from you guys :) hope you're all well xx


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